CROSSOVER: Educating Your Surfer (Otherwise Known As Marketing)
by CJ, Purve.com and CelebrityBling.com
Marketing 101. This simple statement was taken from the basic introductory text of several marketing books:
The most basic rule of marketing is to find the people who are looking for a product and provide it to them ... simple ... right?
Well, it's simple in theory, but when put into practice there are additional factors to consider. To effectively market a product to a potential consumer, it is our job to educate the surfer on the reasons why they want or need our product. We do this in a variety of ways, including text, graphics, flashing movies - all arranged in such a way that the consumer is unaware they are being educated.
Every item we use day to day in our modern society is the result of clever marketing by the manufacturer at some point in history - some items date back thousands of years, but they were still marketed by the seller by educating a consumer to believe they needed the product. We all learned about the difference between 'wants' and 'needs' in our early school years, the basic human needs defined as food, shelter and love with everything else falling into the 'wants' category. A need is defined as something that is compulsory, necessary for survival, but in this century, we define a need as something which improves our quality of life, thanks to the clever marketing of corporations the world over.
If you look at examples of products in our every day life, you can see how marketing has convinced us that we can't live without certain things. For example, a dishwasher, fashionable clothes, a television, a microwave, paper clips, a power drill, a clothesline, disposable diapers, the wheel...the list is endless, but the reality is we would not die if we didn't have a microwave. We wouldn't even die without an oven ... we would cook our food on an open fire - but few of us 'want' the hassle because we are aware of the convenience of modern cooking equipment - thanks to marketing!
The first stove was built from brick and tile in the late 1400s, with improved cast iron stoves being manufactured in the 1600s, the first electric stove was mass manufactured in 1896, followed by a toaster manufactured by Westinghouse in 1910. There is much doubt about who actually 'invented' the first electrical products, but the name Westinghouse is now a household name - not because of factual events, but because of smart marketing by George Westinghouse and his company. Today you can buy an oven that can almost think for itself, cooking a perfect roast with the touch of a button - how many of us could cook anything edible on an open fire?
I use the oven, a common household appliance as my example, because every household has one and all of us are victims of the marketing that has convinced us we need one to survive - we have been 'educated' to believe that we can't cook a meal without an oven, in the same way we have been educated to desire certain food to be cooked in that oven.
Internet erotica is probably never going to have the market saturation of the common household oven, although we can still use the same principals that are applied to any item which has a monetary value attached - educate the consumer to believe they need your product. The advantage we have over high priced items like ovens and dishwashers is the impulse buy - otherwise defined as educating the surfer to 'need' an item immediately, while not necessarily leaving an impact on them beyond that moment.
Many business books and texts talk about the S.W.A.T. Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats), a set of guidelines to allow you to plan the future direction of your business. To ensure your business is heading in a positive direction, you can take a few simple steps to break down your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities open to you in the future, and Threats from potential competition.
Get a pen and paper, or open up a notepad document, and make some lists based on our questions below. We've used Celebrity Bling as a case study and have brainstormed some points that are relevant to our place in the global market, both online and offline.
ANALYZING YOUR BUSINESS
1) What is your Product?
I think the best business model to meet the simple statement above would be the companies who distribute the goods from factories in China, who can produce millions of different items - at least one of which would appeal to every human being with a few dollars in their pocket. But unfortunately, few of us own factories or distribution companies with thousands of outlets - we specialize in a unique section of the potential global product range, adding an additional step of complexity to the simple statement.
To define your product clearly, make a list of the potential product areas (niches) in which it can potentially fit - it helps to write this down and add to it as you think of wider areas. As the case study example, I will use my program CelebrityBling.com which offers products in many areas of business - ie: celebrities. Celebrity Bling has licensed celebrity photos which are used in many distribution and marketing formats - such as cinema movies, magazines, fashion, health and beauty products, music, etc.
Celebrity Bling Products
- Paparazzi, Movie Stills and General Celebrity Photos
- Celebrity Gossip, News, Information
- Movie Reviews, Trailers
- Glamour Models, Wannabe Celebs, Party Girls
2) How is it packaged?
Once you have clearly defined what your product is, you can look at the ways that you will be able to package and present it. The most obvious way to us is via a website, either a free feeder site or a subscription based paysite ... but many of us miss the easy repackaging methods which would open the target audience up extensively. I have written in the past about presentation of content, the principles of which are applied here.
Celebrity Bling Presentation Mediums
- Subscription Paysites
- Galleries, Slideshows, Pictorials
- Dynamic gossip and articles
- Celebrity Profiles with interlinked features
3) Where are your potential customers?
Look at your product, and define the potential locations where you might find the people who are looking for what you have to offer - even if it means repackaging it slightly.
Celebrity Bling Potential Customers:
a) At Fan Club Sites for movies, TV shows, individual celebs, etc.
b) At search engines, portals, etc.
c) In e-mail inboxes
d) Reading magazines, watching television - traditional entertainment outlets
e) Walking down the street, driving in cars, looking at billboards and listening to radio
4) How does your skill set or product give you a market advantage over your competitors?
Each of us has a unique skill that we bring to our projects, be it design, programming, management or a feature of our product that is better than our competition. Often in adult, there are many companies following the same templated business model, making your particular advantage extremely important to your overall marketing ability specifically for your potential audience. The adult business model has two main target audiences, surfers and webmasters, so marketing campaigns are often split into two parts - marketing the sites to consumers, and marketing the promotion of the sites to webmasters.
Celebrity Bling Advantages
a) Licensed celebrity photos
b) Mainstream and adult content
c) Well designed sites
d) A wide variety of promotional tools & angles
5) Who are your competitors?
The Adult Industry is unique in that your competitor can also be your client, partner or provider of content, so the 'Threats' element of S.W.A.T. is less significant than in the non-adult world and can be viewed differently. A threat is any other business that is targeting the same audience, which is more relevant to the webmasters who promote your product to surfers than the actual surfers themselves.
Celebrity Bling Competitors
a) Mainstream media entities such as E!
b) Illegally obtained celebrity sex tapes sites
c) Fanclub and general sites featuring stolen, unlicensed photos
USING THE INFORMATION TO IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS
By now you should have a page of notes, featuring the strengths and weaknesses of your product and business model. The challenge now is to relay this information to your potential audience in a way that will have the highest impact. All elements of the S.W.A.T. analysis can be used in your marketing campaigns, from highlighting your strengths to pointing out your competition's weaknesses.
Here are some tools and techniques you can use to educate your potential audience:
1) Statistics
Numbers don't lie ... which is why people trust them - but statistical examples can be manipulated and presented in such a way that one can prove or disprove almost any point.
Positive: 87% of men who have tried viagra reported a greatly improved sex life!
Negative: 13% of men who have tried viagra reported no change in their sex life.
2) Slogans
A short snappy way to get your point across, the slogan is a cleverly worded summary of your strengths and weaknesses.
Celebrity Bling Example Slogans:
We don't need to fake it
The world beyond Porn
The only legal celeb sites in the adult biz
3) Advertorial
Newspapers and magazines are filled with 'advertorial,' an advertisement cleverly disguised as editorial. This article is a perfect example - while there is valuable information related to your business, I have just given you a complete analysis of the potential marketing avenues for Celebrity Bling. Advertorials usually discuss issues related to the product they are advertising. The best example is the 'make me over' concept in women's magazines - the makeover designed to show just how amazing the make-up, hair and fashion products are.
4) Just Do It
Thinking, talking, and all the best intentions don't equal sales. Most of us feel that we are above the techniques used in the business world because our product is adult content and it has always been easy to sell.
Spend an hour really making a list, not thinking about it or saying "I'm going to do that one day." To borrow a slogan from a hugely successful corporation ... JUST DO IT! You will be surprised how clear things become when they aren't lost in the whirlpool of your mind.
CJ started in the industry over six years ago in '98, launching Purve.com, the first adult subscription site for women. Since then, CJ has launched and managed the affiliate program SexHit, and has used her affiliate management skills to crossover into the promotion of many products ... from Casinos to Paysites ... Bras to Vitamins. Most recently CJ launched CelebrityBling.com and a network of celebrity paysites designed to bridge the gap between adult and mainstream.
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